The present invention relates generally to power-driven conveyor belts, and more particularly to a system and method for connecting ends of a conveyor belt body to form an endless conveyor belt.
Low tension, direct drive conveyor belts are typically used in situations where hygiene and cleanliness are important. For example, in food processing plants such as those that process meat products for human consumption, low tension, direct drive conveyor belts are used to transport items. Sanitation is important and, therefore, the endless belts used in such conveyors are conventionally made of materials that can be hygienically cleaned, such as thermoplastics or stainless steel.
An example of a flexible endless belt suitable for implementing an illustrative embodiment of the invention is shown in FIG. 1. An endless conveyor belt 10 in a typical installation moves around two sprockets 12 and 14, drums or pulleys. A first sprocket 12 may be a drive sprocket for driving the conveyor belt, while the second sprocket may be an idle or slave sprocket 14. The belt 10 has an outer surface 110 serving as an article-conveying surface and an inner surface 22 serving as a drive surface. The inner surface 22 includes drive elements, illustrated as teeth 26, preferably spaced equidistantly from each other along the inner driven surface 22. The teeth 26 engage grooves 16 spaced around the circumference of the sprockets 12, 14 to move the belt. The upper span 11 of the belt will travel in the direction of arrow 15. The flexible belt 10 wraps around the sprocket and around a return roller, or shoe or drum, in the return path.
The belt is made of a resilient material, such as a thermoplastic polymer, an elastomer, or a rubber, and is flexible along its length.
A flexible toothed belt is normally formed by joining two ends of the belts together at a seam 112. Methods of joining two ends of the belts together include splicing, whereby splicing presses are used to weld the butt ends of the conveyor belt sections together, mechanical means, such as a hinge-pin system and/or a knuckled connector system described in US Patent Application Publication Number 2009/0301845, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The belt may have to be removed from the sprockets for maintenance of the system, for cleaning, or for repair. Removing the endless belt 10 of FIG. 1 poses an inconvenience, normally requiring disassembly of the conveyor frame, movement of the sprockets, and possibly destruction of the belt (or at least cutting the belt to be re-seamed later).
A drawback of certain mechanical means for joining together conveyor belt ends includes a hinging or “tenting” effect in the area of the seam when the belt moves around a sprocket, whereby the ends of the conveyor belt project away from the sprocket.